Hell is a place of eternal separation.
In 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Paul said that all those who do not know God nor obey the gospel of Jesus Christ “shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.”
This is probably the worst torment one can endure in hell. The only companionship a person will have in hell is their memory of rejecting God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Hell is not some eternal sleep; rather, it is a place where there will be no rest, day or night (Revelation 14:11).
In Jesus’s story of the rich man and Lazarus, we see the rich man pleading with Abraham, which suggests that everyone in hell will be conscious, never forgetting that they forever missed out on heaven and the presence of God.
For all eternity, those in hell will be in mental anguish every moment because they’ll remember every time the gospel was presented and every time their family and/or friends told them of their need to accept Jesus Christ, and they didn’t. They will remember every excuse they ever used, every lie they ever accepted as truth, and they will be in agony over all their missed opportunities.
Hell is not a state of mind, nor is it symbolic or a metaphor for anything that is hard or difficult. We say, “War is hell,” or that something “hurts like hell,” or even that traffic can be “hell.” If the reality of hell were truly understood, these would seem like heaven.
R.C. Sproul said, “If these images are indeed symbols, then we must conclude that the reality is worse than the symbol suggests. The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain.”
That Jesus used the most awful symbols imaginable to describe hell is no comfort to those who see them merely as symbols.
Dennis Lee is Senior Pastor at Living Waters Fellowship, Mesquite, Nevada. He presently has two books, “From Here to There: A Journey to Spiritual Transformation,” and “Wells of Living Waters,” He also writes a religious column for a local newspaper entitled, “Rediscover the Bible for Life,” along with daily devotionals and thoughts that he posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Living Waters Fellowship’s Website
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